...Scrappy Stars - a finished quilt

A very long time ago Rachel hosted a beginning of the year quilt along focusing on quilt made from scraps. 

I started, and finished this quilt top.
Not long after I basted and started hand quilting.

Then for some reason it sat, for ages.

Late last year I finally finished it off! It gone straight into couch rotation.

Now, finally, with the prompt of a Scraptastic link up I've blogged it. 

I find it best not to rush things. 

...a quilt for K

It is a strange thing. Over the Christmas/New Year 2011/12 break we had in Perth I blogged a lot. The most recent break - hardly at all. 

Which means that although I took (sometimes pretty ordinary pictures) of all of the gifts that I made they have't made it here. In the last few days I have been cleaning out my camera and temporary image folders and come across them again so I think there may be a few catch-up posts!

I have a group of friends that have been friends since high school. Since then we have remained friends through extended international trips, interstate moves, weddings, children - pretty much the events of life that can lead a friendship from teen years to fizzle. Because we are all origionally from pretty much the same place we all tend to end up back in Perth at the same time for big events, like Christmas with some additions since high-school of partners and children. 

In the last few years we have implemented a 'not-so-secret-Santa' gift swap over lunch in the week between Christmas and New Year. This year K was to be my gift recipient. She had mentioned earlier in the year that she might like a quilt for Christmas and I have a sneaking suspicion the Santa drawing was not so random this year. 

The inspiration for this quilt came from a shopping center floor - I was sitting having something to eat in IKEA and looking down at the floor below and snapped this image. 

After a couple of different design options were tossed about in my mind (all squares on point or 9 rectangle blocks?) I made a decision and went about choosing fabrics that were true-ish to the image and would match K's couch. 

Once the top was complete I quilted the 'tiles' into the background with cross hatch squares and hand quilted inside each of the 'pattern tiles' in perle thread.

Because it was a gift I thought is also needed a gift bag. This is from Melody Miller's Ruby Star Wrapping - with a few variations.

Because I used batting scraps rather than the fusible fleece in the pattern I quilted the outer and batting layers. On the top I used the spots as star centres and quilted the petals in.

On the base and the bottom of the sides I quilted squares around each of the circles.

Pressed into service immediately! Later discovered to be 'fully machine washable' and with proper pre-wash prep strawberry doesn't stain!

SMS Rec'd: Quilt down, Quilt down!

...same, but different

Towards the end of last year I found out that some friends were expecting a baby and naturally my thoughts turned to quilt. The baby was still very new and so the thoughts were put aside while I started to plan Christmas gifts. A few days later a got a call from a mutual friend hoping to commission a quilt for the same child and we hatched a plan for a joint gift. Then I got another call a little later…could the order be upped to two quilts? It seems there was not one baby, but two.

When we got to the planning stages of the quilt we went through various options - same quilt, same colours/fabrics; different quilt, same colours/fabrics; Same quilt, different fabrics colours. There were positives and drawbacks to them all - the babies will share a bedroom so they had to look OK together, we wanted them different enough to be easily identified different and I, at least, didn't want one to be 'better' than the other - they needed to be equal, but unique as the babies will be.

In the end we decided to use the same prints with variation, different by complementary background colours and the same blocks but in different sizes while making the same size finished quilt. I used a variation of block 1932 on page 244-245 of the Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

I sent a whole bunch of images to be co-gifter (did I mention that this was a cross border exercise) and then we skyped the fabric purchase (did you know it is easier to turn your webcam to the screen and show and image of a fabric rather than sending a link? I do, now). 

And then I waited for the fabric packages to arrive. One did and then I waited, and waited and waited for the second. It was caught up in the Christmas mail and as each day went by I saw my chance at taking one to Perth for the Christmas break to be hand quilted slipping out of my grasp. In the end I sewed the tops up after I had got home and based and had and machine quilted them in the week before the shower. I machine sewed the binding on both of them on the morning I caught the flight for a weekend away - that included the shower.

The hand sewing of the binding of one was finished, in the recipients house, on her couch with the quilt hidden under another blanket while I was chatting with her and another friend. The second was done on the morning of the shower.

  

In the end I did end up with a favourite, but so did the co-gifter and they were different quilts so I think I met my brief. Especially as mum and dad to be seem to like them both!

...finally finished - A bee Quilt

I have been, at different times in four different bees. One of them is the do. Good Stitches bee and has very clear guidelines in the due dates to finish quilts for which you have been responsible for the design so have finished the three quilts I have been responsible for in that one. 

That leave three bees for me and until earlier this week the total of finished quilts I had for them was zero. To be fair two were in the late quilting stages but had languished in that phase for ages and had been in various stages of construction for nigh on two years. The other is a spring chicken at only about a year old but still at exactly the same form as when the blacks arrived back in my mailbox. 

But thanks in part to the Olympics and the cold nights I have finished off the hand quilting on this one. And in a rare display of some good solid forward planning and because of the placement of the machine quilting I could hand stitch down the binding right away instead of waiting for the interest in getting it done to outweigh the laziness of needing to change to the walking foot because I attached the binding at the time of the machine quilting.

The blocks were completed by the lovely ladies of the Bee Seam Piecing Downunder bee with a theme of 'Circles'. I also asked that each sign a siggy block that I later embroidered and pieced into the back with a couple of blocks that didn't make it back in time to be sewn into the front. 

The sashing and borders took a few different forms before this final version - 2" finished sashing in Kona Coal and scrap 2" finished squares for the border. 

The backing in this Aqua print from Spotlight (with the extra blocks, siggy blocks and some sashing) and the binding in yet more scraps from the feature fabrics. 

Machine quilting in the sashing was with some 12wt Aurifil 1/4" inside each seam and then the border squares each had an X quilted inside with a 40wt Aurifil. An echo or feature circle was hand quilted inside each of the block in DMC Perle 8 in a light grey.

Finishing at about 58" by 71" this one is a little wider and shorter than average but great for the couch at night. 

Thanks to Pam, Bec, Emma, Erin, Kelly, Kelly, Rose, Sue, Liz, Nicole and Abby for the blocks and for a wonderful year of patchwork and an another year of quilting!

...quilting, quilting, quilting

It has come to that time of the year when getting pictures is difficult, it is dark when I leave for work in the morning and get home at night... and the weekends are often gloomy and rainy.

The upside? It is wonderful to sit on the couch in the evening under the quilt and wield the needle threaded with the perle cotton. 

I'm having a great time enjoying the the little frames fairytale friends. 

...a winter of hand quilting

Very early this year I posted about my desire to finish the quilts I had at the stage that were waiting for quilting. I left the tops to be hand quilted off the list, however, as the Australian  summer is not conducive to hand quilting the list of them is here now (and expanded with early year top finishes) to give me a Winter of Hand Quilting.

1. Bee A Little Bit Japanese Fairy Tale Quilt

2. Bee Seam Piecing Down Under Circle Quilt
I'm sneaking this one in here a bit as it will have both hand and machine quilting. I will be machine quilting 1/4" inside all the sashing strips and with an X through all the border squares. The hand quilting will add a little to each of the blocks and secure the three layers inside the block dimensions. 

3. The hand pieced Star Quilt

4. Flurry Baubles Christmas Quilt
Course I need to finish the top first!

...have batting, batting - must quilt

In the not so distant past, but much nearer to the time a was beginning to make a lot of quilts I was in a quilt store and heard another of the customers mention that she and another quilting friend had a made a pact that they would only start new quilts at the beginning of the year and use the six months after July to finish everything they had started from January to June. At the time I naively couldn't see a reason for a pact like that. Why start so many things before you have finished some?

I have lost count of the number of quilts that I have started this year. Some of them are well and truly still towards the beginning of the piecing stage, for some I have almost completed the top and their are others, and not a small group, that are just waiting for the quilting and the binding.

I like to quilt my own quilts, either by machine or hand. And for the size of the quilts that I often choose to make that means moving a lot of furniture to get it basted and a lot of heavy lifting and turning to get it though my modest sized machine or many hours bent over the quilting frame.

All this, and the relative ease that cutting and beginning to piece a new quilt top, means that I seem to have ended up with quite a pile waiting to quilt.

So I am not saying that I will not start anything new before these are finished because that I just a recipe for failure but I will say that by April I will have quilted all these. It isn't the entire list of all the ones waiting to be quilted, just the ones I will quilt by machine. Summer in Australia is NOT a time for hand quilting a large project!

Wish me luck!

Cogsmo Cog + Wheel Quilt

Single Boy/Rings of Saturn

Same But Different Twin Quilts

 BSPDU Circle Quilt

 Six Minute Circle Sample Quilt

...Scattered Showers in Spotlight solids

You could be forgiven for thinking I had disappeared. It is for sure that I haven't been here for several weeks...as so often happens life has gotten busy and my evening priorities have had to change a little. I have been given a temporary promotion at work, it means more work and responsibility but it is a challenge that I am enjoying.

It means though that most evenings I must choose between blogging or sewing. Sewing has been winning of late! I am hoping that now Nik has returned from five weeks visiting relatives overseas things will settle down a bit and I can do a little more of both in the evenings.

One of the things I have sewn in the last weeks is a sample of Kate's new pattern, Scattered Showers. I made it up in the Spotlight solids I mentioned in this post. Including the backing and binding the whole quilt cost me less than $30 and I think this design in the solids is really striking - and would be great for a little boy.

It is a great, quick sew. I made the top in about 4 hours, it was over two evenings after work and they were not late ones!

The backing is mostly a solid the same as the background with one strip of leftover units from the front.

The quilting took a little longer, I chose to hand quilt around each of the coloured squares, once 1/4" around the outside of the larger squares and twice, also spaced 1/4" apart around the smaller squares. I used a DMC No. 8 Perle cotton in almost exactly the same shade as the background.

The binding was prepared and waiting for machine sewing for days before I got to it but the hand sewing to the back happened the same night.

I really love how it turned out. I have a couple of work colleagues currently pregnant that might get it, although   I have a different plan for one I hope to put into action tomorrow.

...for Nan

My  Mum and Nan came to visit a few weeks ago for the night and we sat on the couch in the evening, Mum knitting some socks for me (still waiting on them Mum),  Nan knitting a blanket for a great-grandchild, me quilting my Bakeshop project and Nik looking like he wished he was anywhere else (or wondering how he ended up in the 19th century).

On their return home I realised Nan had left her knee rug behind and sent it back to her with the idea I would also get to sewing her a lap quilt not too far in the future.

This quilt ís the result. It was made, in the majority, in one weekend including the hand quilting. Small quilts are good like that. In fact the thing that took the most time was getting it photographed before posting, including washing it after I dropped it in dirt and almost falling in the lake when I finally got thd pictures I was after.

All the fabric is the Spotlight Picnics and Fairgrounds and the solid is Homespun in 'Sand', also from Spotlight.

...supplies for a quiet Sunday morning.

1. A foot massager
2. An audio book
3. A ball of perle cotton
4. A needle, thimble
5. A basted quilt
6. A seat near a slightly open window.

A new book on my shelf - Quilting - from little things, Sarah Fielke

I had a reasonably ordinary weekend last weekend. Now it is Friday and almost the next weekend I can't remember all of the terrible so it can't have been all that bad but I do remember quite badly rotary cutting my finger and nail and needing to go to the doctor and that did put a slow down on lots if the quilt blocking I had planned to do.

Instead Nik and I went to Carlton to do a few things we had been meaning to go for a while and had a little walk around and an early but delicious dinner. On the walk I happened to pop into Readings bookshop - all the stores in this small (and I think only Melbourne based chain) are great but I have found the one in Carlton to have a particularly good sewing and craft section. And what do you think I saw, and a week before the publish date but Sarah Fielke's new book - Quilting: From little things! You know Sarah, she writes for Sewn and was one of the two co-authors Material Obsession: Modern Quilts with Traditional Roots and Material Obsession Two.

So, what do I like about this book? I love the way it is set out with the book working through different techniques with each being demonstrated by two quilts, a doll quilt and then a larger bed sized one. And, like all Sarah's books, they include some challenging and more time consuming quilts. There is a place for beginner and quick quilt books but I really enjoy some with more difficult quilts as well as they are so rare.  

 I really love this quilt and it is going on the list. I think it also shows really well one of the things I especially appreciate about both Material Obsessions books and this new on and is the focus on the whole quilt and not just the piecing. It is easy to finish a pattern by saying 'quilt and bind as desired' but I find the liberal use of hand quilting and the notes at the end of each pattern on how and why quilting methods and designs were chosen elevates what could just end up being a quilt top to an actual quilt.

And I think this quilt has to win the title for the best quilt name EVER and one of the nicest stories behind it.

 And one more thins I really love is this picture. Sarah is a wonderfully talented quilt maker and her designs and quilts inspire so many people but I love this picture as a demonstration of how nothing is absolutely perfect all of the time. See the seam allowance folded over in the middle?

 As I understand it this book is only available in Australia at the moment (and possibly the UK?) with this availability getting wider by the day. Should you not be in those areas and can't wait for it to come to a store near you I think Sarah has some for sale on her blog and Readings has it here ships worldwide.

Charming Stars in the Park

I started this quilt with 5 charm packs a little solid and a little print for the border. The top was pieced in a (long) weekend. 

Basting required the movement of the dining room table and the whole of the floor. The quilt measures almost 90" square.

I initially quilted 1/4" inside all the sashings and borders. I then hand quilted with No. 8 Perle cotton in variegated blue inside each star to give some definition.

And now it's finished.

The stars look great I think.

The binding is the bricky print in stone. 

The backing is the large flower print in blue. I love how the sun gives a see through stained glass effect while it is hanging.

I can already say it is cosy to sleep under!

Pattern: Charming Stars from the Moda Bakeshop
Fabric: Central Park by Kate Spain for Moda Fabrics